Participants and Setting
To collect data for this research, 150 Iranian undergraduate EFL learners of different ages, gender, and various level of language proficiency were selected through convenient sampling procedure as the participants. The participants were non-native speakers, whose first language was Persian, studying at the Islamic Azad University of Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi, Iran. They were selected from the term, 4 to 8 of Bachelor of Arts (B.A) who study in the field of Teaching English. The participants included 92 females and 58 males. Their age ranged between 19 and 39 years old (M= 23.46, SD= 3.51).
Participation in the study was voluntary and no financial compensation was made. On conclusion, participants were thanked for their cooperation and time and were provided with the profiles of their cognitive and English language skills. The institutional review board of the Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, approved the study and waived the need for participants’ written consent (IRB decision # 131/د ).